The silence in the grand foyer was so heavy you could hear the soft, frantic ticking of Vanessa’s diamond-encrusted wristwatch. I didn’t put my coat back on.

BOOM! BOOM!

Sparks showered down like burning rain, plunging the amphitheater into chaotic darkness. Screams erupted as the world’s most powerful criminals scrambled for the exits, trampling over leather chairs in a frantic panic.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Black-Shield guards flooded the upper balconies, firing submachine guns down into the darkness. I dove behind a solid granite podium, bullets chipping off heavy stone splinters inches above my head.

"Marcus! Victoria! Now!" I roared into my comms.

At that exact second, a subterranean shockwave shook the entire mountain. Marcus had detonated thermite charges along the main power conduit in the train tunnel below.

The Citadel’s primary generators died instantly. The emergency red lights flickered on, painting the stone walls in blood-red hues.

Henrik Vane was sprinting toward the heavy titanium doors behind the stage, holding his glass tablet frantically against a biometric scanner to access the private lift leading down to Vault 108.

"Cover me!" I yelled into the comms.

Victoria stepped out from the side service corridor, wielding an automatic shotgun, laying down heavy suppressor fire against the guards on the balcony. Marcus flanked the left side, tossing two flashbang grenades into the center aisle.

The deafening CRACK of the flashbangs stunned the remaining mercenaries.

I sprinted across the stage, leaping over the fallen podium, and slammed my body into Henrik Vane just as the titanium lift doors slid open. We crashed into the elevator car, tumbling across the metallic floor as the doors hissed shut behind us, cutting off the sounds of gunfire above.

The lift plunged rapidly down into the bowels of the mountain.

Vane scrambled backward, his silver hair disheveled, reaching frantically for a small pistol hidden inside his jacket.

I stepped on his wrist with my heavy boot, pressing down until I heard the bone crack. Vane shrieked in agony, dropping the weapon.

I reached down, grabbed him by his silk tie, and hauled him up against the wall of the descending elevator.

"You ordered the hit on my father," I said, my voice dangerously calm, my face inches from his.

"It was... it was business, Daniel!" Vane gasped, clutching his broken wrist. "Your father was going to turn over the Sovereign keys to the International Criminal Court! He was going to ruin us all!"

"He was trying to clean his hands," I growled. "Something you should have done fifteen years ago."

The elevator chimed. The doors slid open to reveal Vault 108—a massive, circular vault door made of ten-inch-thick reinforced titanium, embedded into the natural granite bedrock.